


always better (when you're falling)

by starlight_sugar



Category: Sugar Pine 7 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Musicians, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 08:58:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12884463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: It’s bullshit, Sami Jo thinks, that she has to be here. You win two Grammys and then you’re stuck going to after-parties almost a decade later, making small talk with people who are actually successful.





	always better (when you're falling)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is written by a fan for fans to read. On the off-chance that anyone affiliated with SP7 finds this, I kindly ask you to move along.
> 
> Hi gang! I have made the (slightly foolish) decision to try and write a different SP7 AU every day in December. It's my own personal NaNoWriMo. The fics are going to be varying quality/content/style, so I'll be posting selected ones to Ao3 in the collection linked above, but all of them will be available on [my Tumblr,](http://waveridden.tumblr.com/tagged/aucember17) if you're interested.
> 
> Title for this fic comes from [Hopeless Romantic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYcOSA4K2s8) by Michelle Branch.

“Dude,” says the guy with the headband, “where have you _been?_ ”

Sami Jo shrugs and tosses her hair over one shoulder. “Do I know you?”

“It’s the Grammys,” headband guy says, which doesn’t really help. It’s bullshit, Sami Jo thinks, that she has to be here. You win two Grammys and then you’re stuck going to after-parties almost a decade later, making small talk with people who are actually successful and who ask the same question, every time.

“That doesn’t mean I know you,” she points out, and sips at her drink, arches her eyebrows.

Headband guy must catch her drift, because he snorts. “You ever heard of a little band called The Black Keys?”

She snorts right back at him. “Uh, you’re not in The Black Keys.”

“It’s a conversation starter,” headband says patiently. “I am a fan of The Black Keys, as we all should be. I thanked them in the liner notes of my album, which are nominated for a Grammy.”

Sami Jo nearly chokes on her drink. “That’s it?”

“Hey!” Headband frowns indignantly. “Not all of us won Best New Artist when we were cool teens with the cuffed jeans and toe rings.”

“I never wore toe rings on stage,” Sami Jo says instantly. She hates, sometimes, that everyone knows who she is. That she permanently exists in the public’s mind as a fifteen-year-old with braces and a guitar and aggressively straightened hair. “And I never went for the headband thing that you’ve got going on.”

“It’s branding.” Headband guy snaps the elastic of his headband. “My buddy Steve, he said I need a brand that no one else has going on, and nobody else has gone for this _fierce_ headband look.”

“I wonder why,” she mutters.

Headband guy grins at her for the first time, and, okay. Sami Jo has been in the music industry since she was starry-eyed and ready to be generous, and while she’s not jaded now, she’s a couple steps closer to jaded than she used to be. And people don’t smile like this guy, because this guy’s not smiling like he wants something. Everyone wants something.

“M’name’s Cib,” he says, and sticks a hand out, still grinning. “I play guitar.”

She takes his hand and shakes it. “Sami Jo. I also play guitar.”

“So I’ve heard, so I’ve heard.” Cib releases her hand and eyes her up and down. “So, going back to my first question, why are you here?”

“That wasn’t your first question.”

“You can answer either.”

“I’m here because my record label,” Sami Jo starts, and then bites back the stupid, bitter sigh that threatens to come out. “Well, that’s about it, actually.”

Cib frowns. “The man keeping you down?”

“Oh, yes, they are.”

“You still making music?”

“Not that you’ll ever hear.”

“Really?”

Sami Jo has three albums. Three fully written, fully produced, albums. Only one has ever been released. It’s the kind of thing that she doesn’t know how to be angry about, because there’s nowhere for that anger to go.

“I’ve recorded some stuff,” she says, carefully. “Label didn’t like it.”

“Sucks,” Cib says, with a surprising amount of sympathy. “Tell you what, my buddy Steve, he’s a producer, I can hook you up. He knows all the inside baseball, inside football-”

“Inside foosball?”

Cib’s smile lights right back up. “Sure does! And outside air hockey.”

“Not inside?”

“Most air hockey is inside already.” Cib taps Sami Jo’s forehead, and she doesn’t even mind. “Let me introduce you guys. Can I give you my number?”

Sami Jo has gotten numbers from a lot of people at Grammy parties. She thinks this is the first one that she’ll actually call.

 

#

 

“Hey,” says Suptic, producer wunderkind, known legend, sitting at a desk next to a three-foot high pile of plaques and awards. “I’m Steven.”

Sami Jo shoots Cib an accusing look, where he’s standing next to Steven. “You didn’t say he was _famous._ ”

“But you said yes anyways!” Cib makes some kind of significant gesture between Steven and Sami Jo.

“Yeah, I actually wanna second what she said.” Steven points at Cib. “You told me you met a girl at a party and you wanted me to check out her music. You did not mention that you were bringing me _a teen pop star._ ”

“Not a teen,” Sami Jo says automatically.

Steven waves a hand at her. “Yeah, yeah, sorry.”

“And not really a star anymore.”

“Listen, I was-”

“And this-” Sami Jo holds up the flash drive with a carefully curated acoustic demo in it. “I wouldn’t call this pop.”

“You got every word wrong,” Cib whispers. “That’s gotta be embarrassing, dude.”

“I’m not embarrassed!” Steven turns to Sami Jo, eyes flashing. “I’m not embarrassed. And I don’t do pop music.”

“This is actually a little more alt-rock.”

“Good.” He holds out a hand. “Just so you know, I am not easily impressed.”

“Me neither.” Sami Jo hands him the flash drive and gives him her most sickly sweet celebrity-magazine smile. “So you have a lot of ground to make up.”

“We’ll see,” Steven says doubtfully, and turns to his computer.

Sami Jo takes the chance move a little closer to Cib. “So how do you know a famous record producer?”

“We lived together for a while,” Cib says. “He was the one who submitted me for the Grammys.”

“Did you win the Grammy?”

“Lost it to Selena Dion.”

“Sucks,” Sami Jo says, and Cib smiles that same unassuming smile at her.

“Did you say Selena Dion?” Steven demands. “Are we going to let that slide?”

“Selena Gomez,” Cib says, and his smile turns distinctly shit-eating. “I misspoke.”

“Oh, you misspoke,” Steven mumbles, and turns to Sami Jo. “Listen, I’m a busy man.”

“Sure.”

“So don’t get all offended if I don’t like your music.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Sami Jo says, a little more bitterly than she intended.

Steven looks at her levelly and then sighs. “Okay, I’m not that busy.”

“I don’t need your pity production, I can produce my own stuff.”

“Yeah, but…” Steven gestures all around him. Or maybe he gestures at the plaques stacked up beside his desk.

“Play her song already, dude,” Cib says exasperatedly. “I wanna hear!” He slings an arm around Sami Jo’s shoulders, and normally she’d push it off, but she lets it stay.

Steven hits play on the music and sits back in his chair as the guitar music starts. Sami Jo closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to watch them, but she can hear Cib humming next to her, pushing her back and forth in time with the song.

As soon as the first song is over, Steven pauses it, and Sami Jo opens her eyes. He’s looking at her critically, tapping his fingers together.

“Well?” Cib demands.

And, slowly, Steven nods. “I can work with that.”

 

#

 

It’s the kind of thing where Sami Jo is constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, and then it… doesn’t. They can only get together a handful of hours a week, but Steven is smart, making the most of it. Sami Jo comes in with the ideas for songs and Cib helps write them, and then Sami Jo has a fully produced song. And then two. And then four. And then:

“Oh, no,” Steven says as soon as she walks in the studio. “Oh, no, oh- Cib!”

Cib pops up in the recording booth and looks at Sami Jo. His eyes bulge as soon as he sees her, and he throws the door open. “Hey, what-”

Sami Jo shakes her head and holds up the paper in her hands, trying to angle it so they can both see it. She knows that she looks like hell, because she’s an unfortunately ugly crier, but this is more important than that.

“Letter of-” Steven squints at it. “Termination of contract?”

“The label let me go,” Sami Jo says. It sounds even stranger out loud than it does in her head. “I’m done.”

Steven looks slowly from the letter to her. “You’re done?”

She nods, a little tremulously, and lets him take the letter from her. “So I can make this album with whoever I want.”

“Yes!” Cib shouts, and before she has time to prepare he has his arms around her in the tightest hug she’s ever received. “Fuck _yes,_ Sami Jo on the lam! Steve, get in on this!”

Sami Jo props her chin on Cib’s shoulder just in time to watch Steven shake his head. “Some other time.”

“Killjoy,” Cib mutters into Sami Jo’s neck.

Steven rolls his eyes and meets eyes with Sami Jo. “Looks like you’re ours now.”

“No, dude,” Cib says, and pulls back, resting his hands on Sami Jo’s shoulders, smiling warmly. “She’s hers now.”

And Sami Jo doesn’t have words for that - for any of this, for the sheer _relief_ of being on her own after eight years of unreleased music, for the way her heart is fluttering at the way they’re both grinning at her - so she smiles back. The realest smile that she has left in her.

 

#

 

They record an album. An honest to god twelve-song album, where Cib plays guitar and sings backup, and Steven tweaks every single volume setting before picking one that sounds good. An album that Sami Jo writes. All of them leave every recording session grinning, and it’s not unusual for Cib to start texting her as soon as he’s home with new ideas, stories from the day, questions about her. Or for Steven to tell Cib to save that shit for private texts and not the group chat, but Sami Jo thinks he actually likes it.

“Hey,” Steven says one day, “I’m going to get one of the execs in here to listen to this.”

Sami Jo blinks a few times. “Really?”

“And I’ll make sure your contract is good if you sign with us,” Steven adds, like he doesn’t know that means the world to her. “We’ll make it work.”

“Thank you,” Sami Jo says. Steven just grunts and looks away, but she knows by now that that’s just how he handles having feelings, so she lets him.

So when she gets to the studio and there’s an impressive-looking guy in a suit, she’s ready for it. She shakes hands and smiles nicely, and she’s standing between Steven and Cib when the guy hits play, looking right at the guy. And so she sees it when the song starts and his face… twitches. Like he doesn’t want to be there.

Slowly, silently, she brushes one hand against Cib’s, who grabs it and squeezes, and the other against Steven’s, who pushes the back of his hand more firmly against hers.

The guy listens to all four songs that they play before he looks at Sami Jo and says, in no uncertain terms, “It’s not a good fit.”

Sami Jo nods, trying to hide the sinking in her stomach. “What can-”

“I don’t want your music,” the guy says, and the tears prick in Sami Jo’s eyes, but she just squeezes Cib’s hand all the harder. “Someone out there will, but not me.”

This, Sami Jo realizes, is the other shoe, dropping.

She shakes hands and smiles nicely and the guy leaves, and she turns around to see Cib and Steven looking at her carefully. She swallows hard - they’ve seen her after crying, but they haven’t actually seen her _cry,_ and she’s not sure they’re at that point yet - and says, “What now?”

“We can kill him,” Cib says seriously. Steven whacks him in the chest, and he glares. “We could! I’m just listing the options!”

“That’s not helpful!”

“It might be!” Cib turns back to Sami Jo and immediately softens. “I mean, it’s up to Sami Jo, but if she says yes-”

“I say we go rogue,” Steven says.

Sami Jo frowns, trying to push back the tears. “Rogue?”

“Go to another studio,” Steven says. “Polish production, give them a full album, get it made independently if we have to. But I’ve spent-” he pauses, glances between the three of them- “we’ve _all_ spent too much time on this to just give up. I want this made.”

“I do too,” Cib says immediately. “We can do this.”

They’re both looking at her, she realizes, and for a minute she can’t say anything. Her old record label, they kept saying she could release music someday, that she’d get something out someday, that someday, someday-

These boys, Sami Jo thinks, are her someday.

“Let’s go rogue,” she says with conviction.

Cib whoops and sweeps Sami Jo up in his arms, spinning her around. “Rogue!” he shouts.

“Quieter, idiot,” Steven says frantically.

Cib drops Sami Jo between himself and Steven. “Group hug!”

“No,” Steven says quickly, “no, no-”

“Group hug,” Sami Jo says, a little sharply, and Steven sighs but lets Cib pull them both in. She takes a deep breath. “We’re doing this?”

“We’re doing this,” Steven says. He’s squished against Cib’s chest, but he manages to look over at her. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

“Us,” Sami Jo says. “All of us.”

“All of us,” Cib says.

And Sami Jo is emotional, she’s emotional and grateful, and so she pulls Cib’s head down and presses a kiss to his lips, lightning-fast. Cib opens his mouth, but Sami Jo ignores him and pulls Steve down for a kiss of his own.

“Whoa,” Cib whispers.

“All of us,” Sami Jo says again, a little tremulous, but she manages to smile. Cib beams back right away, and after a few second Steven nods, not quite smiling. But it’s enough. “We’re gonna make this album.”

 

#

 

Cib wins a Grammy for the liner notes. It looks nice, next to the other four that they win for the album.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a true story. [No, really.](http://songexploder.net/michelle-branch)
> 
> You can find me on both Tumblr and Twitter @waveridden!


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